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Former President Donald Trump looms large over this hearing. The Democratic-led committee is seeking to draw a connection between extremist groups that stormed the Capitol and the president's associates.

But he is not going to appear in front of the panel.

He has previously dismissed the work of the committee, writing in June that the Democrat-led panel was “illegally-constituted”. He also slammed it as a “kangaroo court".

Trump continued his criticism prior to today.

In a post on Truth Social, his social media platform, Trump accused the committee of unfairly targeting him and dismissed past witness testimonies as “fake and made up stories".

He also repeated his false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election, saying that “there is massive and incontestable evidence and proof".

The committee is focused on a tweet from Donald Trump they claim "electrified and galvanised" extremists who were "spoiling for a fight", Jamie Raskin says.

He notes Abraham Lincoln once said that "mobs and demagogues will put us on a path to tyranny".

"This very old problem has returned with new ferocity," Raskin adds.

The tweet he is referencing is from 19 December 2020, when Trump urged his supporters to come to Washington. ​​“Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!” he wrote.

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Jamie Raskin, a Democrat from the state of Maryland, has just given his opening remarks. He is the lead questioner today and is known for his dogged efforts to hold Trump accountable for the Capitol riots.

Notably he served as the lead prosecutor in Trump’s second impeachment trial. In that trial, Trump was impeached by the House for “incitement of insurrection” but not convicted by the Senate.

Raskin, 59, is leading the questioning for today’s hearing.

In a June interview with the New York Times, he said the committee had gathered evidence from more than 1,000 witnesses with findings that will “blow the roof off the House”.

Additionally, Raskin - a House lawmaker since 2017 - is known for his work combating white nationalism and other forms of domestic extremism. He has said he began monitoring the topic following the infamous “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017.

In an interview with the New York Times, Raskin said the rally was “a rude awakening for the country”.

“There is a real pattern of young, white men getting hyped up on racist provocation and incitement,” he added.

Vice-chair Liz Cheney says the hearings have forced the former president and his allies to change their legal strategy.

Rather than take accountability, she argues, Donald Trump's supporters have painted certain figures as culpable in the events of 6 January while painting Trump as swayed by "crazies".

But Cheney says: "Donald Trump is a 76-year-old man. He was not an impressionable child."

He "cannot escape responsibility by being wilfully blind", she adds.

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Committee Vice-Chair Liz Cheney says the hearing will hear testimony from Pat Cipollone, who served as White House counsel to the Trump administration from December 2018 until h the end of Trump’s term in January 2021.

The new testimony was highly sought after. Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin, who will lead today’s hearing, told NBC’s Meet the Press that Cipollone was “aware of every major move” that Trump made on the day of the riot.

Last week, another committee member, California Democrat Zoe Lofgren, told CNN that Cipollone “did not contradict” the witnesses that have testified at previous hearings.

In explosive testimony two weeks ago, former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified that Cipollone told her that Trump would be charged with “every crime imaginable” if he’d gone to the US Capitol on 6 January.

Additionally, Cipollone took part in a meeting in which Justice Department officials threatened to resign if Trump moved to install a new acting attorney general who would look into his false claims of voter fraud.

The committee's seventh public hearing has just begun.

Chairman Bennie Thompson, a Democrat from Mississippi, gavels in the session.

He says political differences must always be settled "at the ballot box" and never through violence.

Follow live updates here.

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The Democratic-led committee believes a tweet from former president Donald Trump served as a “siren call” for extremists to come to Washington ahead of the attack on the Capitol.

In the 19 December 2020 tweet, Trump told supporters “be there, will be wild!”.

In an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, panel member Stephanie Murphy - a Florida Democrat - said that the committee would “lay out the body of evidence that [shows] how the president’s tweet… was a siren call to these folks.”

The panel is investigating whether extremists groups including the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers co-ordinated with Trump’s political allies ahead of the 6 January.

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The committee did not release the names of witnesses in today’s hearing, citing security concerns.

In a call with reporters on Monday, a committee aide said that the decision to keep their identities a secret was due to the “same concerns we’ve had for some of our witnesses’ security and potential for harassment”.

In a previous hearing, the committee’s vice chairwoman, Wyoming Republican Liz Cheney, outlined a number of incidents of potential witness tampering. She said that those testifying before the committee were asked whether any “former colleagues” had contacted them.

“[A person] let me know you have your deposition tomorrow. He wants me to let you know that he’s thinking about you,” she quoted one witness as saying. “He knows you’re loyal, and you’re going to do the right thing when you go in for your deposition.”

Welcome to our live coverage of today’s session of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.

In today’s hearing, the seventh so far, the committee is expected to examine whether former President Donald Trump and his political allies co-ordinated with extremist organisations ahead of the riot.

The hearing is part of a series of public sessions aimed at investigating the events leading up to and during the riot. The committee has tentatively planned to release an initial report in September, although it is unclear whether they will stick to the timeline.

Follow along here for live updates.